Acme Punched! A 2D Animation Blog: No. 181, Film Review: Saludos Amigos

Trying by way of Andreas Dejas’ The 9 Previous Males, I discovered myself marveling as soon as once more over Wooly Reitherman’s gaucho Goofy sequence. A collection of drawings from this piece was additionally included in The Phantasm of Life by Thomas and Johnston, and I’ve usually gazed admiringly upon these great, hyperactive constructions at which Reitherman was so good.

This was a section within the 1942 launch Saludos Amigos, the results of will tour of Central and South America by Disney and a choose crew of artists. (I consider there was additionally some motivation to attempt to domesticate new overseas distribution markets after the loss to fascist powers of a lot of the continental European markets.) I assumed I’d see if Saludos was obtainable on YouTube, and I succeeded; in truth, I discovered an actual animator’s particular. Some would not prefer it as a result of it’s 1) recorded in Spanish with 2) tinny sound high quality and three) takes up solely a 3rd of the YouTube display screen and 4) is cropped from its authentic side ratio. Put it up at full display screen, although, and the picture is clear and clear. If you’re simply learning the animation, you most likely will not care a lot in regards to the vocal sound monitor anyway. The URL for that is here.

The 4 animated sequences are every prefaced with some grainy, blown-up 16mm live-action footage of the South American international locations being visited, generally displaying Walt Disney and a few of his workers observing or interacting in entrance of the digicam. Like a lot of the newsreel footage shot within the 40s and 50s, any sound you hear has been added in publish manufacturing, together with singing and sound results. Additionally, nearly all the pieces has been sped up, most likely only for the straightforward purpose that it was shot at 16 frames per second and run in theaters at 24.

However the movie consists of not solely the Wooly Reitherman animation of Goofy, but additionally a tremendous sequence that includes Donald Duck and a cartoon llama that had been animated principally by Milt Kahl.

There’s additionally a nice and cute story a few mail aircraft named Pedro, an early instance of Disney’s anthropomorphic automobiles that embody Susie the Little Blue Coupe and the Vehicles motion pictures.

Least fascinating of the 4 cartoon segments is the one referred to as Aquarela do Brasil. This introduces the parrot character Jose Carioca to Donald Duck, and it’s competent animation that solely suffers by comparability with the livelier and extra dynamic animation of Donald and Jose, together with a 3rd character referred to as Panchito, within the later launch The Three Caballeros, with design and animation by the good Ward Kimball.

The movie is there to check or simply get pleasure from. Keep in mind that the YouTube settings menu incorporates a alternative of speeds, together with .25 (25 %), which is a price of 6 to 7 frames per second and means that you can respect all the person drawings.

I like to recommend that you simply spend a while with Saludos Amigos and revel in a few of the finest comedian animation that ever got here out of the Disney studios.